Be-caped and beguiling, Ryan Adams stages a triumphant solo return at the Barbican. Being a Ryan Adams fan can be a bit of a rollercoaster. There’s his habit of releasing everything he records, often for free, simply because he feels like it. For the record, I love it, but it drives some people nuts, and just confuses others. If mellow country classic Heartbreaker is your all-time favourite album, chances are you probably won’t be spinning his death-metal sci-fi concept album Orion all that often. Then there’s his personal life and his well documented spiral into drinks and drugs which pretty much everybody assumed would end with him choking on his own vomit in a hotel room, a la Gram Parsons. Erratic, angry, funny to himself but not others, stoned Ryan was a sad spectacle, even if the music kept flowing at a startling rate. Then there are the fans. Every fandom has a small core of nutters with a hugely inflated sense of entitlement, who make way more noise than they should and seek to spoil it for the quieter majority. The tiny coterie of fuckwits who sit at the heart of Ryan’s fanbase like some malignant tumour composed entirely of self-regard and pressure-cooker spite are as bad as the worst Doctor Who fans, and trust me, that’s some benchmark. Ryan struggles to deal with these prats, engaging with his fanbase online for periods until overwhelmed by the bile of a vocal few and retreating, shutting down accounts and websites, retreating into his shell to lick his wounds. Eventually he pops up somewhere else in some other guise, Quixotic,...

The news story below appeared in Screen International yesterday, so I can talk about it now. In brief: the film has got development funding, I’m on board as script consultant, and Oliver Milburn is writing and directing. I met with Oliver and Emma, the producer, a few weeks back. We got on famously and they have a good, strong take on the material. It’s all very exciting, I must say 🙂 Oliver S. Milburn to adapt feature version of School’s Out The feature adaptation of Scott Andrews’ boarding school set novel has received development funding from Screen South. Oliver S. Milburn is to adapt post apocalyptic boarding school novel School’s Out for the big screen. Scott Andrews, who wrote the novel on which it is based, will work as a script consultant alongside Milburn, who is also being lined up to direct the film. It will be the second feature to come out of UK production company Multistory Films. Milburn also wrote and directed the company’s debut feature The Harsh Light Of Day which has just completed post. The project has secured development funding from regional screen agency Screen South. Producer Emma Biggins of Multistory Films, said Milburn had “outlined an exciting action packed screenplay with a strong cultural subtext for School’s Out.” Multistory Films is currently developing a slate of 9 films, including a co-production with Australia and a sci-fi short film, to be directed by Louisa...